Starliner’s Astronauts Have Their Return Trip Delayed Again
Astronaut Butch Wilmore’s wife: “You just sort of have to roll with it and expect the unexpected.”
In the fall, Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft landed uncrewed in a New Mexico desert. In February 2025, it ended a three-month test mission troubled by technical issues that forced the astronauts to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) to remain there.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) then tasked SpaceX to retrieve the stranded astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, nicknamed Freedom, was launched and sent to the ISS.
Now, the return of Wilmore and Williams has been delayed again, as the launch of the hand-off crew taking the place of those currently aboard the ISS has been pushed back.
NASA has announced that it is delaying the SpaceX Crew-10 launch, a move that will keep astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — who already had their stay aboard the International Space Station unexpectedly extended — in orbit even longer.
Williams and Wilmore launched to space in June, piloting the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Their trip, expected to last about a week, ballooned into a monthslong assignment after their vehicle experienced technical issues en route to the space station and NASA determined it would be too risky to bring them home aboard the Starliner.
The astronauts have since joined Crew-9, a routine space station mission originally slated to return to Earth no earlier than February after a handoff period with Crew-10. Now, Crew-10 will get off the ground at least a month later than expected because NASA and SpaceX teams need “time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission,” according to the space agency.
It looks like the replacement team will now be heading out in late March.
However, NASA said in a news release Tuesday that Wilmore and Williams’ replacements, traveling aboard the SpaceX Crew-10, would be launching to the space station “no earlier than late March 2025,” meaning that would be the earliest that Wilmore and Williams will return to Earth.
The most recent delay in the Crew-10’s launch is to give “NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.”
Despite the unexpected extension of their mission, both astronauts are reported to be adapting well to the situation, with their families expressing support and understanding.
“You know, we sort of don’t expect him until February,” Butch’s wife Deanna Wilmore told Knoxville, Tenn. TV station WVLT in a recent remote interview. “February or March.”
Sitting in between the couple’s daughters Daryn, 19, and Logan, 16, Deanna added, “He just takes it knowing the Lord’s in control and that since the Lord’s in control of it, that he’s content where he is.”
As for herself, Butch’s wife said, “You just sort of have to roll with it and expect the unexpected.”
Easter 2025 is on April 20th. As it is the season of miracles, perhaps the Starliner team will return to Earth to celebrate with family and friends.
Easter is April 20th. Hopefully, they will be home to celebrate it with family.
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) December 19, 2024
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“A three-hour tour”
“You know, we sort of don’t expect him until February,” Butch’s wife Deanna Wilmore told Knoxville, Tenn. TV station WVLT in a recent remote interview. “February or March.”
Is Musk delivering these people, or is it UPS?
It’s clear none of the unexplained UFO sightings are from NASA. They don’t fly anything any more—all hat and no cattle—lots of astronauts and no rockets.
We’ll send them cheesy movies!
The worst we can find! (La la la).
Will they build robot friends out of carher’s masks and bowling pins?
Start with McKenna’s Gold, then, Manos, the Hands of Fate.
The short subject will be Posture Pals.
It is comical that the Biden Administration is attacking Musk at every turn but expects them to ride to the rescue like this. If Boeing wasn’t more concerned with DEI than putting a working ship up the astronauts would be on the ground already.
Democrats are calling Musk the co-president while ignoring the fact that there’s a puppet in the white house that can’t find his way to the bathroom without help.
Fortunately, he no longer needs to do that.
Boeing just announced that their CIO (white Kamala Harris) has been fired…. I mean announced she is leaving Boeing.
Boeing’s problem is not just fat, dead wood and toxic DEI. They have not invested in innovation, so the stock price going up is all garbage. Good talent has gotten pissed off and left.
Are we in a time warp? “In February 2025, [the Starliner] ended a three-month test mission”
At what point do these two have to register their cars on the ISS and change the addresses on their licenses?
All this seems like a total waste of an enormous number of perfectly good statutes of limitations.
I hope that when they finally get home, are debriefed, and get accustomed to gravity again, that each of them makes sure their flights home to be with their families are booked on Airbus aircraft, and that they make a point of saying so and run-on sentences are a bad thing never use them and remember your commas.
Will they have to await the de-orbiting of ISS?
https://www.adastraspace.com/p/will-happen-iss-deorbited-2030
This is an unannounced study on the effects of long-term living in low gravity situations on the human body. They will delay the astronauts’ return for at least 9 months – a full year if they can find “reasons” to manage it.
The ISS is turning into Gilligan’s Space Station!
Leave a Comment